Journalist flees Colombia amid death threats

Journalist flees Colombia amid death threats
Wednesday, 24 August 2011 07:39
Travis Mannon

A Medellin-based journalist from newspaper El Espectador was forced to leave the country after months of receiving threats on her life, the newspaper announced Tuesday.

Mary Luz Avendaño had been covering a story about the ties between drug gangs and members of the Medellin police. She began to receive death threats from a drug trafficker, alias, "Mi Sangre," of La Oficina de Envigado drug cartel.

"I began to get warning messages, especially from the sources that gave me information. They told me it was serious, that I should take care of myself, that they had heard comments and that I could be hurt," Avendaño said in June 2011.

The El Espectador main office began to receive phone calls asking for personal information and the residence of Avendaño. After several months of providing protection to Avendaño, authorities determined that the threat to her personal security was still very high.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/18520-colombian-journalist-flees-country-amid-death-threats.html

Sharp rise in threats against journalists in Colombia .
Wednesday, 24 August 2011 17:06
Travis Mannon

Threats towards journalists around the country are on the rise, according to the Foundation for the Freedom of Press in Colombia (FLIP). Executive Director of FLIP Andres Morales told Colombia Reports that the number of threats against members of the press in 2011 has already eclipsed the total for 2010; there have been 57 threats to journalists so far in 2011, compared to 49 threats in 2010.

The FLIP director specified that journalists who are investigating corruption in the upcoming elections, as well those who report on individuals with legal trouble, are particularly in danger.

While the organization found that most of the intimidations in departments such as Buenaventura, Valle del Cauca, and areas of Santander were merely threats, it pointed to the departments of Antioquia and Cauca as having especially high instances of threats turning into serious attacks against members of the press.

According to Morales, so far this year in Antioquia alone, one journalist has been murdered, one has been shot while covering a story, two have been illegally detained, and another five have been threatened. On Tuesday, Medellin-based journalist Mary Luz Avendaño was forced to flee the country after receiving death threats for several months.

More:
http://colombiareports.com/colombia-news/news/18540-rise-in-threats-against-colombian-journalists-a-vicious-circle.html

Re the Washington Post Page 1 story about the U.S. Embassy in Bogota being complicit in the widespread wiretapping and shadowing of Colombian Supreme Court judges, opposition politicans, journalists and others.

That caused a big flap, the embassy denied it, Uribe denied it (they had to, they could hardly admit it was true.)

On Monday, the Attorney General of Colombia summoned a Washington Post reporter to question him/her about the story.

The Post has a full-time reporter stationed in Bogota, Juan Forero, but the reporter who got a byline (along with Karen de Young, areporter in Washington) was Claudia Duque, a native of Colombia. It was not made public whether it was Forero or Duque who was summoned.

Here is a rundown on Duque, whose life may be in serious danger (again):



Claudia Julieta Duque is a researcher and journalist covering human rights issues in Colombia. She currently works for Radio Nizkor, a digital information project on human rights of the Equipo Nizkor, a human rights NGO based in Brussels.

She has worked as a journalist the last 22 years reporting on issues such as the kidnapping phenomenon in the 90s, recruitment of children by illegal and legal armed forces in the Colombian conflict, and investigated human rights topics: the impact of impunity and the right to justice in Colombia, the infiltration of extreme right-wing paramilitary groups in government institutions (including the Attorney General’s Office). She has documented multiple human rights violations (massacres, killings and disappearances). One is the Jaime Garzon case, the murder of a renown journalist and humorist killed on August 13th, 1999.

Due to her journalistic work and research on the Jaime Garzon case that began in 2001, Claudia Julieta has been a victim of kidnapping, several murder attempts, multiple death threats (against her daughter too), three exiles, illegal tapping of phone lines, mobile phone and electronic communications, persecution, other illegal activities of intelligence including the elaboration of a profile with personal details, traits, relevant professional achievements, private conversations, analysis on the progress made on her investigations on the Garzon's killing and specific instructions to carry out “offensive intelligence” against her.

More (very interesting)

http://www.womensconference.org/claudia-duque/

How magnificent are the double-standards of the pro-Colombia crowd on DU who champion right-wing Death Squad politicians of Colombia but get protected by DU moderators.

Indeed we owe these fascists a debt of gratitude for exposing the improbable-but-true willful blindness of those who run this website.

Welcome to D.U., Necronomiconomics. :hi: